TV networks adapt to accommodate tablets

Stephen Langsford of Quickflix says, “There’s more TV series content out there than there are traditional channels for distribution in Australia.”
Photo: John Woudstra

by
Marianna Papadakis

Television industry experts have said figures showing Australians spend more time using their iPads and other tablets than watching TV are not an indication that the local TV networks are losing a fight to the death with new mobile technology.

Research by Canstar Blue in December found tablet owners spend an average of 15 hours a week – 128 minutes a day – using their devices, in comparison with an average of 13 hours a week, 111 minutes a day, that Australians watch TV. However experts said this didn’t mean people were no longer watching TV, rather that they were watching differently.

Deloitte partner
Damien Tampling
, head of its national technology, media and telecommunications division, said tablets and mobile phones were probably taking market share from most other news and entertainment delivery mediums like free TV, pay TV, magazines, newspapers and even laptops.

However he said that while more than 31 per cent of households owned at least one tablet, TV networks – such as
Foxtel
,
Seven West Media
,
Nine Network
,
Network Ten
and others – were investing heavily to move with the shift, so that their television content was being consumed concurrently.

Mr Tampling said surveys like Canstar Blue’s did not pay due regard to the tendency of viewers to multitask, for example using their tablet in their laps in front of the TV, or by watching television content on a tablet or mobile via a video player.

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“Consumption of TV isn’t reducing in the same way as that of magazines and newspapers," Mr Tampling said.

Devices being used concurrently

“It’s a difficult line to draw to say that tablets are overtaking TV. Consumption of TV isn’t going down; it’s relatively stable. People are using devices concurrently and they are watching more TV on those devices."

He pointed to figures from television industry body Think TV, which showed that despite the diversity of devices, the average time spent watching the box each day had not altered dramatically since 2009 and remained on average about 3 hours and 20 minutes.

Australians watch an average of 96 hours and 37 minutes of broadcast TV a month on a TV set, compared to 8 hours and 36 minutes of online video content, including YouTube videos, catch-up TV and films, on other devices.

Nine Network research director
Steve Weaver
said activities on tablets were wide and varied so direct comparisons to watching TV were largely meaningless.

Entertainment consumption was “not a zero-sum game", he said.

“As devices proliferate, our time spent consuming these entertainment options across all devices including TV continues to increase.

“Of more importance is that tablets and other mobile devices are heavily utilised in discussing and engaging with television content, which in turn provides a richer and deeper experience for the viewer."

Audiences fragmenting

However the founder and chief executive of Australian online movie and TV streaming and DVD rental service
Quickflix
,
Stephen Langsford
, said few Australians were watching free-to-air programming when it came to internet TV.

“There is no question of a fragmentation of audiences and a strong shift towards on-demand services," Mr Langsford said.

“They can get free-to-air on TV sets, but when it comes to devices, people are watching on-demand TV series from the US, where most of the hit series come from. There’s more TV series content out there than there are traditional channels for distribution in Australia."

Mr Langsford said this was evidenced by a 20 per cent growth in the hours its 110,000 users spent streaming in the September quarter compared with the June quarter.

“We’re doing well over a million hours of movie and TV streaming a month, and there is a lot of action hitting the internet video scene in Australia next year," he said.

An abundance of TV streaming services is surfacing in Australia. In December Quickflix announced it was bringing new-release movies and fast-tracked TV shows to the Xbox 360, TiVo media devices, LG Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, PlayStation4 systems and Amazon Kindle Fire.

Subscription video-on-demand on its way

Meanwhile Nine Entertainment is launching a subscription video-on-demand service in the second half of next year to offer a service similar to Netflix in the US, and Foxtel Play is expanding to Samsung Android and working with Hoyts on online movie services. Also the ABC’s popular iView app has opened in the Google Play store for Android devices.

Mr Langsford said 2013 was a year of consolidation for Quickflix; the streaming concept was still new to the Australian market, and he expected 2014 to be a year of growth.

“This will be an important Christmas and summer period as people discover the app on devices at home, he said.

“It’s early days in the Australian market," he said. “There’s an opportunity for local players to gain traction in this market and we’ve got the jump, having secured our position on all devices."

Quickflix penetrates about 1.3 per cent of 8.5 million Australian households while Foxtel had about 36 per cent; in the US, streaming devices were in about 30 per cent of households.

Mr Langsford said he was not concerned about the possibility of US players such as Netflix, Hulu Plus or Amazon hitting the Australian market.

“The big players are focused on domestic growth in the US and larger markets."